“We’re getting lonelier.” With that simple fact, Caroline Beaton of Forbes begins her exploration into the growing sense of loneliness faced by Americans, and particularly millennials. She describes how the General Social Survey notes that the number of people who say they have no close friends has almost tripled since the mid-1980s. That same survey also found that more than forty percent of the population has either one person or no one with whom they will discuss important decisions. For many of us, our relationships appear to be headed in the wrong direction. But why is that?
Beaton, who specializes in workplace psychology, offers two reasons. The first is that loneliness is contagious. She describes how lonely people “tend to act ‘in a less trusting and more hostile fashion,’ which may further sever social ties and impart loneliness to others.” Essentially, lonely people make those around them question the quality of their own relationships and retreat further away from them over time. As most people seem implicitly aware of that consequence, lonely people’s natural tendency to withdraw is expedited by their friends’ tendency to push them out.
Second, the Internet and social media allow lonely people to get just enough interaction with others to feel as though they’re doing alright without actually developing a deep relationship with anyone. To be sure, those platforms can help people make and keep quality relationships, but doing so takes the same effort and willingness to be vulnerable with others as relationships in any other walk of life.
While Beaton’s explanations are not particularly ground-breaking, they offer a helpful reminder of why, once one starts on the path to loneliness, it can be so difficult to make a change. It’s important to note, however, that what loneliness looks like for one person will not necessarily be the same for someone else.
Personally, I’ve always felt more comfortable in small groups or as a fly on the wall in larger settings. Being around lots of people or having more than just a few close friends is just draining. As a result, what I consider a good situation might be deemed lonely by a more extroverted person. And while even the most outgoing of people are capable of being lonely, with a multitude of acquaintances yet no real relationships, I know that my natural tendency is to go to the point that deep friendships of any sort can begin to seem unnecessary. I think that tendency is what drew me to Beaton’s article in the first place.
You see, whether we are introverts, extroverts, or somewhere in the middle, all of us have natural tendencies and personalities that make us relatively immune to certain temptations but more vulnerable to others. Understanding those vulnerabilities is vital to a strong walk with God. Otherwise, we’ll never see Satan coming until we’ve gone headfirst into one of his traps, falling further and further away from the Lord in the process. Fortunately, we serve a God who knows us better than we know ourselves (Psalm 139:1–6), and who longs to help us avoid the temptations and sins to which we’re naturally prone (1 Corinthians 10:13).
In a world full of fallen and flawed people, all of us are aware, on some level, of our need for that help—that’s why self-help books and seminars, for example, are a multi-billion dollar industry. As Christians, we have been called to help others meet the only one who can provide that assistance (Matthew 28:16–20). If you’ll ask him for it, God will place you in the paths of those you are uniquely suited to help along that road. Are you willing to do your part today?
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